Redemption II

Chapter 72

Hermione could hardly think to breathe inside of all the sensations that were flooding through her system. The room around her was dark, darker than it should have been. Tall shadows hid danger in their reach and Hermione knew they were coming for her. She couldn't understand why this was happening. She had gone to bed relaxed, with a warm meal in her stomach and a man who would do anything to keep her safe.

"So filthy, he could never want you, so impure, so useless."

Hermione's breath caught in her throat as a dark voice purred into her ear. Her arms struggled against the bed that she held herself up against. Her wrists pulsing painfully from the restrains that held her there.

"You're wrong... you're wrong..." Her voice trembled against a dark laughter that filled the darkness around her. "He loves me...he-he..."

"No one could ever love you, use that brilliant mind of yours. A deatheaters whore is all you'll ever be!"

Hermione tried to turn her head, but the face she had expected in the corner of her vision didn't match the voice that was whispering in her ear. A hand slowly rose over her stomach and up her chest leaving behind a cold along her skin.

"I was doing you a favor. All this time, I knew it too. You would have been lucky to have me."

"No..." Hermione's heart thumped hard in her chest. She pulled her eyes from Ron's face, distorted by anger and regret, "Severus... Severus, please..."

"He won't help you. He was only looking out for himself. You're nothing but a bed warmer, someone he can control to satisfy his deepest desires."

"He wouldn't do that to me... He's never-"

"Oh no?"

Hermione let out a sharp whine when the hands shifted, pressing into places they didn't belong. Her body was frozen in place, unable to resist just as she had been that night. Her eyes turned up to the creeping darkness crawling over the ceiling growing closer and closer. It was then she felt a body beside her and her eyes found the man she had allowed into her heart resting beside her. She tried desperately to reach out to him. To touch him, to call his name. Her voice sounded muffled and desperate in the void.

Severus jerked awake to the sound of his name desperately whimpered. His sharp eyes quick to adjust to the night, he lifted up to turn to the woman simpering beside him, her arms tangled in the extra sheet they'd added to the bed for winter. He shifted onto his hip, gently but expeditiously untangling her limbs. Her hands came up as though to push him away when he saw her eyes snap open with fear.

"Easy, easy, I have you. I'm here... you're safe." He wrestled lightly with her uncoordinated limbs before helping to bring them back down so that she could see his face. Her breathing was rough as though she'd been fighting in her sleep and he suspected that the pressure to her ribs from the blankets was to blame.

"Severus..." Hermione's eyes overflowed with tears of relief as his face came into view. Her hands that were held in his hand shifting to reach for his shoulders. Using his partially propped up frame, she pulled herself tight against his chest and hid her face into his neck to let out a relieved if broken sob.

"It's alright. I'm here..." Severus ran his hand down her side soothingly, whispering a soft spell to ease the discomfort in her ribs. After which he helped her move closer, running his hand over her back in slow circles. He tried to keep his hips shifted away as she curled up against him. The top of her shins lightly pressed into his thighs and he lowered his head down to gently kiss away one of the tears that had broken free.